Dove, real beauty and the racist history of skin whitening
Dove’s tone deaf ad is just the latest in a long line of racist beauty advertising which sees white skin as clean and black skin as something to be cleansed, explains La Trobe University’s Liz Conor in this crossposting from The Conversation
This week the marketing office of Dove, a personal care brand of Unilever, found itself in hot water over an ad that many people have taken to be racially insensitive. Social media users called for a boycott of the brand’s products.
The offending ad showed a black women appearing to turn white after using its body lotion. This online campaign was swiftly removed but had already hurtled through social media after a US makeup artist, Naomi Blake (Naythemua), posted her dismay on Facebook, calling the ad “tone deaf”.
We strongly condemn this racist campaign by @Dove & note with concern that this is not the first time they’ve been called out for racism. pic.twitter.com/28FEazUprx
— Min. Nathi Mthethwa (@NathiMthethwaSA) October 8, 2017
Bad of Dove but clearly not a black or white issue either. They really don’t want to be starting something here or they will just end up in a jam. I remember a time though when we would have just thought this is human nature
“Not a black or white issue”? “Racially insensitive”? Sheesh! How racist does a campaign need to be for us to call a spade a spade. Dove’s campaign is appalling, and yes, outright racist. I can’t believe it was ever considered, let alone posted. They deserve every bit of backlash they are getting.
After the black woman transforms into the white woman, the white woman transforms into an Asian/Middle Eastern woman
Is this also racist?
This is an interesting take on the issue
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/10/i-am-woman-racist-dove-ad-not-a-victim
How pathetic and petty this is. Firstly, the only thing ever mentioned is the black woman turning white, not the white woman turning Asian. Secondly, it is so clearly not intended to be racist, and surely that matters. It’s a slip-up, if that. And Dove? Come on! They’ve been on the side of the perpetually-morally-outraged almost since before feminism was cool.
Racism has got a supply and demand problem. There just isn’t a high enough supply to feed the morally superior mob looking to elevate themselves above the rest of us. Just look at that anti-racism ad, how ridiculously out of touch it feels.
Skin whitening signifies status in many Asian and African countries, not because of Western oppression, but because it suggests you don’t have to work outside; you’re not a manual laborer.
Westerners like to tan, what is that, cultural appropriation? It sure ain’t easy satisfying the academic lynch mob.
Without talking about the third frame of the ad (the white woman turning into another ethnicity) I think it looks worse than it is. What if they’d reversed the order?
Did the ad have a line that explained the image, like ‘for every woman, everyday’ or something? Or is this an instance of trying to let the visual speak for itself (and have it fail miserably)?